yrae | Blade Archer ~ Thirty-Four (Reply)

Kael and his training class had been given the day to ready themselves for their desert trip, to find all they needed to bring with them, consolidate what they didn’t, and pack everything neatly away. Kael had already spent much of the previous evening at the markets. He had felt guilty with every copper coin he handed over, but most of his list was crossed off now. He had spent almost a full gold piece worth of supplies, and so far he had only bought the non-perishables. He still he needed to buy food.

The masters had told the boys not to scrimp on certain items, that only the best would do for their arduous journey, but Kael had better things to spend his money on than a sturdy pack and five water skins. The contents of his pack would only be useful for those eight days of his life and never again. By the time he ventured properly into the desert, he would be with the army and able to afford better.

Once home, he hid his pack on a nail he’d hammered into the inside of his chimney, then made his way back to the palace for lunch, and to seek out Aen. The archer was nowhere to be found, not in the staff bar nor at the barracks or archery range. He ventured back into his old district for the first time since he had moved away, marvelling at how nothing had changed, but how everything felt so different. He was accustomed to a higher life now, he realised. The thought made him straighten his back as he walked. How could he have disdained such a life for himself all those years ago? The Seventeenth District was well behind him, now.

He reached Aen’s house, but the squat building with the crumbling corners was empty. He rounded past the Charging Nira, only serving two patrons at this time of the day, and was almost ready to give up and check the river on the other side of the city when a different thought occurred to him. It had been the girl’s death that had affected Aen so; maybe he had gone back to where it had happened.

Kael walked down the familiar streets, recognising the decay for what it was. He would never come back here. Nothing tied him to the district anymore.

He scanned the rooftops as he neared his mother’s house, and spied Aen sitting on the roof next door. His back was hunched, knees drawn up to his chest as he stared at the roof where, Kael supposed, his life had changed.

Kael walked around so he would be within Aen’s line of sight. He waved up at the archer, then gave a whistle when he didn’t react.

Aen started, his hand whipping automatically to the blade sheathed at his hip, then he relaxed when he recognised Kael. He patted the roof beside him, and Kael easily scaled the squat building with a kick off his mother’s wall and a jump onto the roof.

‘Didn’t expect to be back here,’ Kael said as he dusted his hands off. There wasn’t even a stain on the roof. Ynuk had been thorough in his clean up and had scratched away the flaking mud brick wherever the blood had seeped into it.

Aen still hadn’t spoken. Kael awkwardly took the offered seat beside him, resting his wrists on his knees as he stared at the house that was, a long time ago, his home.

‘How did yer ma die?’ Aen’s voice was quiet, nothing like his usual casual bravado. ‘Ye never said. She just… died.’

Kael frowned at him, in turns wondering where the question had come from and whether he should answer it honestly. He took a deep breath, turning back to the house as he let it out in a sigh. For whatever reason, this was important to Aen. ‘Some bastard cut her throat,’ he answered, partially surprised at the venom in his own voice. He had only given thought to his mother, not to whoever had killed her. He’d deliberately tried to avoid those thoughts. ‘They came into me house, when she was asleep, held a blade to her neck and they cut her.’

Aen nodded slowly. Kael looked aside to see his friend’s brow deeply furrowed and lips tight, as though he had something he wanted to say but didn’t know where to begin.

‘Why ask?’ he prompted. Had Aen’s mother died recently, too?

Aen’s mouth tightened and he shook his head stiffly. ‘I knew this house,’ he said. ‘When we go here to kill them what took it, I knew it. But I never knew it before. I didn’t know it were yer house.’

Kael edged back just a little. ‘What is it ye’re telling me?’

Aen took a sudden deep breath and nodded to himself. ‘I had a mate, back a coupla years. Harder nut than ye ever was, ye sees, ‘cause he killed people fer his pay day, before we was ever in the army. But he was a good mate, helped me out when I needed it, kept me off the streets.’ He shrugged one shoulder. ‘Started showing me the tricks, all of it.’

Kael shifted again and subtly eyed off the quickest route back to the Main Road to be sure nothing had changed since he had last used it. There was a new shade cloth strung between two buildings he might use, if the situation demanded it.

‘Then one day he just disappears.’ Aen clicked his fingers. ‘Just like that, gone. I ask around for him, but nobody’s even heard of the guy, until it seems I start asking the right people. This one guy takes me into a house, don’t reckon it was his, and tells me, me mate’s dead. He didn’t work on his own, like I thought. He worked for the same lot this guy works for. So he wants to know if I want revenge. Aeia yeah, course I do!’

Kael swallowed, but his throat was dry. His fingers were numb and prickling at the same time. ‘Ynuk killed him,’ he figured out. ‘And ye went after him.’

Aen nodded stiffly. ‘I swear to ye, Kael, I had no idea he was yer brother. Ynuk’s a common enough name, ye knows? And the guy what killed me mate, well, I had a completely different picture of him than what ye said yer brother was. So I never said nothing, just did my thing. Didn’t even know until the other night, when we come back here to sweep the desert with them squatters. Didn’t even know it were yer place.’

Kael’s ears were ringing. He hardly heard the words Aen was saying, but somehow, some disconnected part of his mind was able to respond. ‘And me Ma. Ye killed me Ma.’

Aen’s forehead fell to his knees, making Kael jump at the sudden movement. ‘I never knew,’ Aen’s muffled voice excused from between his knees, then he lifted his head again and fixed Kael with a fierce gaze. ‘I swear to ye, we’ll get ‘em. All of ‘em. Their whole operation. It’s wrong. I just wanted to ruin the guy what killed me mate! They never said he was yer brother!’

‘Shut it,’ Kael bit back. He had found motion again, now, and braced his hands on the edge of the wall. ‘Sweep the Aeia-damned desert,’ he hissed, and jumped down from the roof.

On shaky legs he walked towards home. The house behind him held nothing but horror for him now. He could almost understand Aen’s burning revenge, his desire to hurt the one who had killed his friend. But to go after the killer’s family? Kael wouldn’t sink that low even now, now he knew who had drawn the blade. Of course an assassin’s family was innocent. Of all people, they kept the secret from their family. What cause did they have to die, just for one twisted mind’s revenge?

His brother had lied, now someone he’d once called a friend. With all that had happened, he wondered if maybe even his father had been lying, all those years ago, when he was just a fisherman. With such sick people paying for his death, was it possible that even his father had been involved? Or was he another innocent pawn in someone else’s revenge, like his mother?

How much of his life had been lies? Was anyone around him real?

Ronanen. He needed Ronanen now more than ever. She was real. She had to be real. She trusted him when he could trust nobody else around him.

His pace strengthened and quickened at the thought of her. He was almost running by the time he made it to the palace, then he sprinted across the courtyard to the healing house.

Ronanen was inside, rolling up bandages and chatting with one of her colleagues. Her smile dropped when Kael burst into the round white room, then she beckoned him to the back door.

Kael followed with long strides, already feeling calmer for just seeing her. Once outside, he almost fell on her as he clung desperately to her.

‘Please be real,’ he begged her.

‘Kael, what do you mean? What’s wrong?’ She sounded a little frantic and flustered herself, but hugged him back and rubbed his back soothingly.

‘Everyone around me is a lie,’ he answered. ‘Please, be real.’